Sport and fitness for today’s youth
October 2008 £2.75
Expert calls for funding overhaul By Louise Cordell AN INDUSTRY expert has called for sports funding to be overhauled amid claims quality PE provision is a lottery depending on school budgets. Graham Morgan, director of Evolve Sport, said although teachers are expected to deliver PE, too much of their time is taken up by red tape and paperwork. Some schools, he said, have enough money to pay companies like his to deliver PE provision on their behalf but others are run on a shoestring and have no spare cash left over. He said: “It is not particularly fair. In affluent areas, parents can afford to pay for after school clubs and private schools have the funds available to pay for external help. But the smaller, inner city or countryside schools don’t always have that option, and although there are various schemes available to help they often don’t cover all the costs involved. “I believe properly trained, correctly monitored, external support staff have a definite role to play as there is a grey area of need.
“After all, extra help has always been brought in for music and language lessons, so why should sport be any different? If there is a weakness in provision then it needs to be addressed, not hidden or ignored.” Evolve Sport works with schools, clubs, colleges and LEAs to offer PE and sport classes and after school fitness clubs to children. The company also offers courses to help improve the skills, confidence and expertise of staff. Graham, a former secondary school head of PE, said: “Schools are under intense pressure to deliver. “We exist because there is a clear skills gap between teachers who leave college with limited sports education training, and coaches, who are trained to deal with smaller groups of interested kids rather than larger classes of mixed abilities. “Schools are facing big challenges with league tables and increased testing, and teachers are being pushed and squeezed to their limits. “This means they have less and less time to do non core activities, so external help is needed.”
Academy expands
Olympian Roger Black will be attending this year’s Sports Development Week to discuss how the 2012 Games can change young people’s attitude towards sport. He will be making the event’s keynote speech, encouraging all those involved in the industry to play their part in inspiring the next Olympic generation. His presentation is part of a programme of speakers at the UK’s first ‘Meeting the Challenge’ National Sports Conference, held alongside Leisure Industry Week at Birmingham’s NEC.
ONE of the world’s most effective programmes for weight loss, the Wellspring Academy, is to open one of its boarding schools in the UK. Designed for those between 11-24, the residential treatment school, in the Lake District, will employ a scientifically based clinically proven approach to weight loss, promoting a healthy lifestyle through a low-fat diet programme, activity management, and comprehensive cognitivebehavioral therapy. Pupils will learn dieting tips and food and science weight management. The school is set to open in three years’ time. It will take in children who are at least 20lb too heavy and have had diet problems for more than a year and they will be encouraged to take part in intensive physical activity and consume just 1,500 calories and 12g of fat per day.